When the pandemic hit in March last year, many supposed the virus would pass and people would get back to their lives. It’s been over a year now, and well, the prospect of ever going back to ‘normal’ keeps on moving further into the future.

Vaccines that are now reaching different countries and continents show a glimmer of hope, however much remains unknown about how the situation will turn out altogether.

A columnist once wrote; The virus may go, but Covid-19 will remain with us. The question is not, "When will this end?” It is, "Who will we be when the worst has passed?”

Dr Edson Rwagasore, Manager for public health surveillance emergencies preparedness and response at Rwanda Biomedical Centre, says the world learnt that responding to new pandemic such as Covid-19 requires for countries to work individually and collectively since it has shown capability to weaken societies, health and economic systems beyond borders.

Beyond Covid-19 pandemic, countries need to keep on working together and leveraging from the best experience to build a resilient system in preventing any other emerging and re-emerging diseases, Rwagasore says.

"Vaccination is the sustainable solution to reduce disease burden. Covid-19 vaccines have proven efficacy in prevention, even if they conferred limited protection against infection by mitigating future attack rates, hospitalisations, and deaths. It is estimated that a novel Covid-19 vaccine will need at least over 60 per cent of the population to provide herd immunity.”

Gloria Umwali, a Rwandan youth, commends the steps being taken to curb the virus. She notes that vaccination will and can reduce the fear of being contaminated and that this will most likely prevent us from being confined in our homes again.

She believes that, to some extent, the world has redefined ‘normalcy’ in comparison with the world’s pace before the pandemic.

"Some businesses may resume as before, others have found new ways to live and go on normally. As we know and as Dr Donald Kaberuka has emphasised in his recent interview with France 24 & Le Monde, vaccination will not happen everywhere, at the same time. Developing countries will access vaccines, after developed countries. So, it is already difficult to say when the pandemic will indeed be gone. One can only hope that every country recovers from the pandemic, fully, sooner than later.”

She however adds that it would be naive to not consider the fact that, social-economic factors will not play into this scenario. I think that, the faster a country can recover from the pandemic’s consequences, the better. But some countries will get there before others.

"The ideal would be to see equity in action and as a result, witness and benefit from a global booming economy. For some reasons (some stated above), it looks like this will happen in stages or seasons.”

A new normalcy

What is normal? Going back to work? Going to the market? Traveling within or out of your country? Having friends and family in our homes? Going out to dinner in a restaurant? Hugging your friends?

Barbara Margolies, a humanitarian activist based in the US wonders what normal is or what it will be when the pandemic passes.

She says, there will be so many people who will still not be able to return to work because a company or a shop has closed permanently!  There is no job to go to. And many offices here realise that some people can actually stay home and do work from home, there will be many offices that will become smaller. Therefore, there will be lots of empty office space, which is already happening in New York.

Margolies believes online shopping will be a big business even after the pandemic, and that people will return to socialising.

Will people return to socialising in groups? Yes! Will people return to restaurants? Yes! But when will we be able to travel safely? Will the rest of the world receive vaccines? Not everyone is going to take the vaccine even if available! What does that do to the rest of us? Will the virus continue to spread because others do not or will not take the vaccine? Will it be safe to get on a plane for hours and hours if some on that plane have not been vaccinated? What do we do when those people cough or sneeze and do not cover their mouths? And we are in a confined space on that airplane? She shares.

Margolies believes people want to get back to normal and that everyone wants to be with others to share a meal, a story, their feelings, their thoughts. However, "The question is: What have we learned from this pandemic? We certainly need to be better prepared for the next one, but how do we accomplish that? Do we share more information with other countries? Of course! But what else do we do, what else can we do?” she wonders.

"So many people died unnecessarily, can we make sure that doesn’t happen again? I don’t know. I think about the people who have lost their jobs and will not be able to find another one. I worry about those who don’t have enough money to buy food or pay their rent or their electric bills, so many hopes and dreams have been crushed by this virus. How do we find a way to help those people have dreams again? I don’t know.”

Umwali says the pandemic has taught many new ways of living and doing things.

Everything that we dealt with, individually or collectively, during this pandemic, she believes it remains imprinted in our history and shows in our new lifestyles.

"The lessons, those that we learned and those that we are still processing, will stay. Be it lessons we learned from ourselves, our environment, our finances and our relationships with our finances. I also think that, with this pandemic, many of us, across the globe, have had to deal with our minds and hearts. Not that we did not have seasons of difficult mental health, but this global situation has forced a good number of the world’s population to address our different coping mechanisms, especially the ones that invited us to explore our personas, deeply.”